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Ex-Burail head warder gets four-year jail in graft case
Convicted for seeking illegal gratification of ₹5, 000; while pronouncing the quantum of punishment in 2014 case, the court of special CBI judge Sushil Kumar Garg compared corrupt officials to “termites”
The special court of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Chandigarh, on Tuesday, awarded four-year jail to a former head warder of Model Jail, Burail, Chandigarh, who was convicted for seeking illegal gratification of ₹5, 000 from an inmate.
While pronouncing the quantum of punishment in 2014 case, the court of special CBI judge Sushil Kumar Garg compared corrupt officials to “termites” while imposing a fine of ₹50,000 on Sarwan Kumar, the then head warder of Burail model jail.
“The persons of the ilk of the convict are termites responsible for eating up the roots of the societal and fiscal tree of the nation and thereby depriving the entire nation of the fruits of that tree.” the court held.
Seeking exemplary punishment for the corrupt official, CBI public prosecutor KP Singh had submitted, “It is the need of the hour to give exemplary punishment to the public servant. Taking a lenient view sends a very wrong message.”
Terming conduct of Sarwan as “deplorable”, the court turned down his request for leniency.
Court cites example of a termite-infested tree
Drawing parallels between corrupt officials and termites, the court cited the example of a fruit-bearing tree. “In a locality, a mango tree was planted by a resident. It was nursed and cared for immensely. It bore honey sweet mangoes. The entire populace of the locality enjoyed the fruit. However, with the passage of time, termites ate the roots of the tree. As a consequence, the tree dried up and stopped bearing fruit. Not just the man who planted the tree but the entire populace of the locality was deprived of the fruit. Termites, who ate the tree up, had not contributed towards its growth and nursing,” read the court order.
Inmate had sought change in duty from the warder
Sarwan Kumar was arrested in July 2014 on charges of demanding money from Sandeep Kumar, who was serving a life term since December 2008 in a kidnapping case. After returning from parole, he had requested the head warden to change his duty from the visitors’ room, in the presence of his cell mate Prem Singh Bisht.
After Sarwan sought bribe from Sandeep, Prem provided him with his brother, Pratap Singh Bisht’s phone number and asked him to get in touch with him with the demand. According to Pratap, who works with the Chandigarh administration and was the complainant in the case, Sarwan first asked him to buy a water purifier for him but later asked for ₹5,000 cash instead. Pratap alerted the CBI and a trap was laid to catch the accused red-handed.
